This approach relies on ACUCOBOL-GT's ability to run the same program on any machine. With this approach, you write a single program that has a single user interface that runs on all machines. The big advantage of this approach is that you need to write and maintain only one program. The disadvantages are that you will have to work harder to get a program that looks good on all systems, and you are limited to only those features that are available on both graphical and character-based systems. Generally, this means developing a simpler user interface for the graphical system than you might otherwise choose. If you presently have a character-based user interface and do not plan to add graphical controls, then this approach is straightforward to pursue and is the obvious choice.
The biggest challenge to this approach is developing code that works well under both systems. This generally means a lot of back-and-forth development under Windows and a character-based system to ensure that the results look good and work well. Fortunately, AcuBench® provides a built-in facility for testing both character and GUI interfaces under Windows. Alternatively, you can use Acucorp's Windows Console run-time to perform initial character-based testing.
This approach generally accommodates graphical single-line labels and entry fields. Getting labels and entry fields to look right on both types of systems is fairly easy. Incorporating other graphical elements tends to be harder and should be done sparingly.
ACUCOBOL-GT does not yet support all control types on character-based systems. In particular, bars, scroll bars, bitmaps, and tabs are not supported, so you need to avoid these when using this approach. Support for these controls may be included in a future version.